if you buy cheap clothes at the store are you sinning for CRUELTY?

[SkyWriting]

because those clothes are fabricated by poor children and women in india and poor asian countries where the producers pay 5 dollars per month to their workers (slaves) without caring about their health and nothing

Buy less clothes. Goodwill has lots of clothes. Buy american.

 

[Jonaitis]

because those clothes are fabricated by poor children and women in india and poor asian countries where the producers pay 5 dollars per month to their workers (slaves) without caring about their health and nothing

This is tricky! It reminds me of a thought I had: in the 18th and 19th century, where do you think the fabric material was at the labor of? How would you avoid it in that time?

 

[Mountainmanbob]

because those clothes are fabricated by poor children and women in india and poor asian countries where the producers pay 5 dollars per month to their workers (slaves) without caring about their health and nothing

Not a lot of choices regarding where clothing is made these days.

Take away that $5 per month and the people will be worse off. Better to give whatever extra money you have to charities that support the poor workers, including by providing the means for more self-sufficiency.

Giving makes one feel good.
M-Bob

 

[joshua 1 9]

because those clothes are fabricated by poor children and women in india and poor asian countries where the producers pay 5 dollars per month to their workers (slaves) without caring about their health and nothing

Once a year at china new year people are given a week off to go home to be with their family. 20% of the people do not return to their job. Often they give up their factory job hoping to find a job working on the infrastructure. If they were not working in the factory they would be working on the farm making even less money. So to not buy their product is going to make life even worse for them. My concern would be if they were working with toxic chemicals. Eventually the young women hope to return home, find a husband and raise a family but it happens that they lose the ability to have a baby because of chemicals they worked with in the factory. Of course the government really does not care because they have to many people already in China. So they do what they can to control the population.

 

[joshua 1 9]

Hi gustav,

Here's a wiki site listing the 'minimum' wage in several countries. Now, I don't actually know where you're getting your information that some people are only making $5/month and you'd need to provide some evidence of a clothing manufacturer that is only paying their workers $5/month to support your claim. I long ago learned that 'just because I say so' isn't proof.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

There are people working in China for as little as $60 a month, even in an area when the Gov min wage is $120 a month. They get a bed to sleep in and they get food from a big pot to eat. When they get a day off they go to town and buy some real food. They buy some clothing for themselves & then they try to send a little money home to help their family with their needs.

 

[miamited]

Hi joshua,

So, are all those workers clothed in pink your evidence. Are they only making $60/month? There are actually a lot of people all over the world that make less than $60/month.

In Haiti, right here at our front door, the minimum wage is $2.50/day. That's just at $60/month for a 5 day work week. A lot of Asian countries have many low paying jobs. Similarly on the continent of Africa, there are many countries with very low paying jobs.

However, I'm fairly confident that the pink workers in your picture make more than $60/month. Most factory workers in China make between $250-300/month. The $60/month folks are generally the low skilled peasant worker.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

 

[joshua 1 9]

The $60/month folks are generally the low skilled peasant worker.

When my wife graduated from college she was making around $100 a month. So the college graduates do not make all that much more then your so called peasant worker.

 

[miamited]

When my wife graduated from college she was making around $100 a month. So the college graduates do not make all that much more then your so called peasant worker.

Hi joshua,

That's a terribly sad account. When my son graduated from college he started off making about $7,000/month. College doesn't seem worth it if it's not going to boost your income potential. I never even went to college and my first job paid better than $100/month.

I say that just to rebut your generalization that you seem to believe based on your own experience. "So the college graduates do not make all that much more then (sic) your so called peasant worker." That just is not a generally true statement. In fact, I would posit that it would actually be a very, very rare truth for college graduates.

According to the 'average college graduate starting salary posted by NACE, it was right at $50,000/year. I honestly doubt that there were any employed respondents who were making $100/month. So, I'm sorry for your wife's predicament, but you really need to be careful about making generalizations about some overall condition based on one singular and specific account of a loved one's situation. This statement is just not a true statement: So the college graduates do not make all that much more then your so called peasant worker.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

 

[joshua 1 9]

very rare truth for college graduates.

Not so rare in the Philippines. $100 a month was not that uncommon of a wage at the time. That is why they go overseas to work. She ended up working in Hong Kong for 9 years. Then she decided it was time to get married and have a kid so she picked me. In Hong Kong they were very excited for her and very happy. The church was filled with people. She was going to be able to raise her family in America. She gets homesick but she does like it here.

 

[miamited]

Not so rare in the Philippines. $100 a month was not that uncommon of a wage at the time. That is why they go overseas to work. She ended up working in Hong Kong for 9 years. Then she decided it was time to get married and have a kid so she picked me. In Hong Kong they were very excited for her and very happy. The church was filled with people. She was going to be able to raise her family in America. She gets homesick but she does like it here.

Hi joshua,

Well, I will admit that I'm not familiar with wage scale in the Philippines and I was assuming that since your info says you live in the U.S. that we were talking about a U.S. education. I think you should likely have made that fact known that you weren't comparing U.S. wage scale. I'm also going to assume that you're speaking of a while ago since the average Philippine wage for fresh college graduates now averages about $460. US/month.

I mean if we're going to claim low wage pay since the beginning of time, it was not uncommon here in America to only make $100/month for everyone in the 1800's. However, that doesn't have any bearing on wages today. I was also assuming we were discussing currently relevant pay scales.

You know what they say, assuming makes...well you know. Anyway, under current wage scales, how much do those workers in China make in your picture?

God bless,
In Christ, ted

 

[joshua 1 9]

under current wage scales, how much do those workers in China make in your picture?

Last I checked China has a min wage of $140 to $160 a month. Wages can go as high as $240. They make less working on the farm. Not everyone follows the law to pay the min wage. Robotics are starting to take over though. My son is a computer engineer and he is not allowed to talk to anyone in the factory because eventually they are going to be replacing them with robotics and they will be out of a job.

China has nine cities associated with 9 different types of women and each district has their own scale for wages. Shanghai is quite a bit different from Beijing for example. When I talk to people from China they are amazed that I now as much about their country as they do and sometimes I know more then them about different areas of China. For example they do not now much about Tibet because the government does not give them a lot of information because of all the controversy there. They have a modern train going up into that area now. Only you have to be healthy go go there. The elevation is pretty high and the air maybe thin for some people. I think that is why the people in the Himalayas are given to religious experiences because the air is thin and their brain is oxygen starved. I remember when I use to ski in the mountains at higher elevations. I had experiences that I did not have at lower elevations.

 

[Monna]

A lot of Chinese firms outsource textil work to Cambodia, Bangadesh, etc.
The nominal value of a month's wage is not the whole story; one has to understand the "purchasing power parity" - what you get for your "dollar." This varies from country to country, but also within one country through time. So I can say my Dad's first job out of college in the 1940s was a very impressive CA$ 800 per YEAR! And just before I retired my firm sold my time for close to (a cheap) CA$ 1600 AN HOUR!

In the late 1990s while in Vietnam I bought a tie for US$ 1.00. The seller made a profit on it (I didn't even barter with him for it), but when I looked closely to the label, I saw it was made in Colombia! (and so included in the price was even the transport cost from South America.) Asian countries are not the only low cost producers. And compariing salaries and costs across countries and through time is tricky. Perhaps more attention should be paid to the non-salary working conditions that people are forced to accept.

 

[joshua 1 9]

A lot of Chinese firms outsource textil work to Cambodia, Bangadesh, etc.
The nominal value of a month's wage is not the whole story; one has to understand the "purchasing power parity" - what you get for your "dollar." This varies from country to country, but also within one country through time. So I can say my Dad's first job out of college in the 1940s was a very impressive CA$ 800 per YEAR! And just before I retired my firm sold my time for close to (a cheap) CA$ 1600 AN HOUR!

In the late 1990s while in Vietnam I bought a tie for US$ 1.00. The seller made a profit on it (I didn't even barter with him for it), but when I looked closely to the label, I saw it was made in Colombia! (and so included in the price was even the transport cost from South America.) Asian countries are not the only low cost producers. And compariing salaries and costs across countries and through time is tricky. Perhaps more attention should be paid to the non-salary working conditions that people are forced to accept.

In hong kong here are a lot of people with little mom pop shops. Now a lot of them are selling on the internet and they make very little money. They sell stuff for a dollar and somehow pay shipping with that money.

 

[tuliplane]

because those clothes are fabricated by poor children and women in india and poor asian countries where the producers pay 5 dollars per month to their workers (slaves) without caring about their health and nothing

This is something I think about a lot and bothers me. I try to avoid places that don't have a strict working conditions policy. I also shop from secondhand places and stores like T. J. Maxx and Marshall's since they just buy out the extra inventory from stores that ordered too much. Besides the ethics of the factory conditions, I figure shopping at stores like I just listed cuts down on waste as well. I heard that there are warehouses filled with unused clothes so why keep buying more brand new?

 

[SwordmanJr]

The sin of cruelty has more to do with fat people wearing shirts that are too short to cover their protruding guts. One fat girl I saw the other day in Wal-Mart (go figure) even had something jammed into her button with a dangling cross on a chain. Visual assault should be outlawed....

Jr